Production Rules
Production rules are a formal representation used in computer science, artificial intelligence, and linguistics to define conditional statements of the form 'IF condition THEN action'. They are a core component of rule-based systems, expert systems, and formal grammars, enabling the specification of knowledge and decision-making logic in a modular and declarative manner. In practice, they allow systems to infer new facts or trigger actions based on existing data or conditions.
Developers should learn production rules when building expert systems, business rule engines, or any application requiring complex, rule-driven logic, such as fraud detection, diagnostic tools, or automated workflow systems. They are particularly useful in AI for knowledge representation, enabling clear separation of logic from code, which enhances maintainability and allows domain experts to contribute rules without deep programming knowledge.